High-class glass

The etched glass tabletop sparks a memory. The color, the feel and the design bring forth a recollection of swimming in cool, green and crystalline water.

The slab of glass is smooth on top, but underneath it has been deeply sculpted and etched with frosty sandblasting. It is clear glass, but green tones emerge from its natural mineral content. Its outside edges are broken and buffed to form cascading ripples instead of straight lines.

The glass tabletop is graced by a trio of rockfish bounding from abstract wafes. The piece rests on a verdigris copper-legged frame.

It is art. It is functional. It is an almost 2-by-3 foot coffee table ($575) made by glass artists Jerry and Rayette Perrett of Port Townsend.

The Perretts have a 15-year career in glass artistry. They've recently expanded to tables that are of gallery quality but sturdy enough to be used in a tranquil living room.

The Perretts, both 40, collaborate in a studio behind their Port Townsend home. In a converted garage they design coffee tables and end tables ($500) as well as free-standing and hanging decorative pieces ($20 to $250).

He's from Pine Ridge, S.D., a former rodeo cowboy. She's from Bismark, N.D. They met, married, and moved to Bend, Ore. where he worked as a building contractor. A friend made wood signs !nd kept hearing that customers would like similar pieces done in etched glass. So Jerry Perrett pulled out his compressor and Rayetta pulled out her college-level arts training. Together they experimented, and, self-taught, within two years were doing glass art fulltime.

In the course of their career, the couple has trucked glass works to shows between Key West and Bellevue, Arizona and New York. They kept homes in Bismark and in Florida. They spent their life on the road, and trucked their sandblasted glass from arts show to arts show.

In the spring of 1991 they settled in Port Townsend, near her family and in a house that has a double, high-ceiling garage with a woodstove. It was soon converted to a studio.

The move to a permanent home will allow the Perretts to shift their emphasis from smaller, packable show ieces to higher-quality gallery pieces, such as the tables, and "corporate art" -- the big sculptures that grace lobbies.

Over the years the Perretts' style evolved from classic, Victorian-era glass etchings that involved lots of cattails or wheat clusters or realistic animal or flower patterns. Often the designs were used on kitchen cabinet or door insets, or hanging signs.

But the Perretts haven't stayed static as artists. The heaviest part of their trade now is in tables and in corporate gifts -- small sculpture that is often engraved with a name or an award title.

Their designs are now drawn from the natural world and combine a mix of realism with the abstract. Most themes have something to do with water -- a stylized Japanese tsunami wave, shells, fish, whales and dolphins are found in many of their pieces.

After traveling so much they've become versatile in regional design, and have, on request, sandblasted glass with flamingoes (from the Florida years) or even a Westernstyle skull and feather design (circa their Arizona years). And customers have suggested their own designs. The Perretts will sketch out a customer's design idea, send it back for approval, and take it from there. Jerry and Rayetta have worked together so long that now neither remembers for sure who designed which piece.

Several West Puget Sound galleries, including the Amy Burnett Gallery in Bremerton, have carried Perrett furniture and art pieces. The work also is on display at Glass Etchings by Perrett, 2132 Sheridan Ave., Port Townsend, telephone 379-9463.

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